Synectics for Management Decisions, Inc. (Synectics) is a total-solution IT provider that offers federal and state government agencies, non-profits, and commercial clients a full range of planning, design, development, and operational support services. The company is located in Arlington, Virginia.

Synectics developed the Audit Resolution Tracking and Management System (ARTMS) for the US Administration for Children and Families (ACF) as an element of its software as a service (SaaS) offering. ARTMS is a Java- and Oracle™-based system used by federal agencies to manage, track, and report on the status of financial audits of recipients of federal funds, including primarily grantees. ARTMS was developed using JEE, XML, Oracle WebLogic™, and the Oracle 11g™ RDBMS.

Jim Tyson of Synectics explains how the services of this client work: “ACF customers include other federal agencies who share a common need to manage federal grants efficiently and effectively.” Tyson notes that the AWS implementation of ARTMS demonstrated to ACF that cloud-based deployments of its shared service offerings are secure, reliable, and cost-effective.

Tyson’s team decided to use AWS because their federal customers require solutions that perform well, and are secure (Federal Information Security Management Act compliant), reliable, and cost-effective. He says, “AWS provides us with all of the services and support we need to implement this solution, at a much better cost than the alternatives. Further, use of AWS does not involve any vendor ‘lock-in’ as the solution is deployed using only standard operating systems, tools, and languages.”

Tyson and his team have learned that deploying simple applications to AWS is a very quick, low-cost process. He comments, “We budgeted several person-weeks to complete the AWS deployment of ARTMS; yet almost all of the work was completed in just over two days, by technical staff with no prior training or experience with AWS.”

Tyson adds, “Our technical staff are thrilled to have had the opportunity to work with AWS and are eager to do more. They are doing grass-roots level evangelizing with our customers, and with our other technical staff.”

The Synectics team is in the process of developing a detailed cost/benefit model that captures the cost savings of the AWS deployment, both in support of agency evaluations, as well as in full production operations.